My Crappy Website

All the crap that fit to publish…and a little bit more.

Cambridge, April 27, 1861 – Oliver Wendell Holmes Eighty years have passed, and more, Since under the brave old tree Our fathers gathered in arms, and swore They would follow the sign their banners bore, …

As I peruse social media such at Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. I have notice a troubling trend….many people don’t know the proper way to look at their phone when taking a selfie. Most people look …

This song says so much! Please take a listen to this wonderful song from Kid Rock. If we would all take this message to heart the world would be such a better place. There’s so much craziness going on the world and it seems there is nothing we can do about it. But the least we can do is care.

Don’t be concerned that this is a Kid Rock song…it is not explicit and there are no vulgar words.

Today I have been in a John Prine mood. John Prine is not a well know artist even though his songs are very good. His songs tell about life and can touch feelings deep down inside. One of these songs is Donald & Lydia. A song about two sad and lonely young people who long for love and romance but are too shy and / or awkward to seek it. Take a listen and tell me what you think. Really listen to the words and then message of the song.

This 4th or July let us all pause to remember what this holiday is all about. FREEDOM and LIBERTY for all! Freedom and liberty for all races, religions, nationalities, genders, gays, lesbians, bisexuals…..EVERYONE! Let us begin today to embrace the true meaning of FREEDOM and LIBERTY by eliminating bigotry,racism, and discrimination in our own lives!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!

After almost two years since jumping off the Apple iPhone wagon I am ready to begin making a complete break from Apple products. The path to this decision has not been straight and the ride has been bumpy but I am now used to Android and look forward to moving forward and watching it develop.

My journey to here got off to a rocky start. One of the main reasons I wanted to try Android was because I kept hearing how great the Samsung S5 was and how it was an iPhone killer. So I went down to the local T-Mobile shop in Landstuhl Germany and for a 16 GB Samsung S5.

Right off the bat I started regretting the decision. I could not stand all the Samsung crapware and it the phone locked up and crashed often. Especially when running Samsung apps. I was wondering what the hell people thought were so great about this phone. When I got the S5 I could not figure out how to get the camera icon to appear on the Lock Screen so I could quickly take a photo. Come to find out that this was disabled in the T-Mobile version of the Samsung S5. Whoever thought this was a good idea is a complete idiot. I learned to live with it since the phone still have the music controls on lock screen, A few months later there was an upgrade that gave me the camera icon BUT TOOK AWAY THE DAMN MUSIC CONTROLS!! I was furious but was into the two-year contract that I could not get out of without paying a large fine.

One of the self-inflicted problems I immediately had was I could no longer receive text messages from my iPhone using friends. This is because I did not disassociate my iPhone from iMessage prior to switching over. Also all my iPhone friends had to manually change me from iMessage to regular text message.

Another thing that bothered me about the Samsung S5 was the low quality of the device itself. The thing is completely plastic and unless you put a good case on it breaks very easily. So far I have broken the screen twice and the rear camera is also broken. I never had this problem with my iPhone 3G, 4, or 5. I still have all three of them and other than having to replace the batteries they have required no other repairs. I treat phones rough with my outdoor hobbies such as Geocaching and I use them to track my workouts like Nordic Walking and bicycle riding. The Samsung S5 just can not handle this type of activity. I might get the S5 fixed again since it can still be used for music and other activities but if the screen breaks again it will not be repaired.

I don’t even want to go into all of the shitty bloatware that Samsung and T-Mobile puts of their Android phones that are impossible to get rid of unless you jailbreak it. I tried to jailbreak it once but it failed and I never tried again. I should also mention that the Samsung Music and Fitness apps are crap!

Finally I did not like the fact that I did not get Android OS updates until both Samsung and T-Mobile decided to release them. This could take up to six months!

There are a few things I liked about the Samsung S5 such as the Micro SD card slot and being able to swap the battery just by removing the back. But other than that I hated this phone.

Based on my bad experience with the Samsung S5 I have decided to NEVER buy another Samsung product. Not a phone, TV, smart watch, blow dryer, not ANYTHING!

So you might be asking yourself at this point why I have made the decision to stay with Android. Well, after talking with a few other people I discovered that it is probably better for me to go with a pure Android version which comes from the Google phone. Better known as NEXUS. So during my last trip to the USA I stopped by Best Buy and bought Nexus 6P 32 GB phone which is totally unlocked and runs pure Android. I turned it on and was instantly impressed with how much better it runs! Plus the NEXUS 6P is a high quality phone made of METAL! I wish they had a 64 GB version of the phone when I went to Best Buy and now regret not going ahead and just ordering a 128 GB since I like to put my entire music library on my phones.

So I have now had the NEXUS 6P for about a month and I am very happy with it. Yes, it is still a bit quirky but nothing like the Samsung S5. Sometimes the OK GOOGLE, which is Android’s version of Siri, does not activate and the phone has crashed a couple of times but it is still a 100% improvement over the Samsung. The only features I miss from the Samsung is that the NEXUS 6P does not have a Micro SD card slot and the battery is not easily replaced.

Additionally by going with a pure, unlocked, not carrier specific Android I get all updates immediately when they are released from Google.

So now I am starting to make the conversion from Apple and iTunes to Android and Google Play. I have signed up for the Google Play unlimited music service and will be cancelling my Apple Music service. I will keep using my Apple TVs until they no longer work but will now also start using Chromecast more when I want to stream music, movies, and TV.

My plan it to also move away from using FitBit devices for workout tracking and use solely Google Fit and MapMyFitness.

Another reason for making the switch is I am not forced to use expensive, proprietary Apple hardware. I can research and choose from a cornucopia of Android devices costing from as low as $100 to $600.

The next step to my conversion plan is to get a smart watch and even here I have a choice from many devices such as the Motorola Moto 360, Huawei, or even the low-cost ASUS ZenWatch. I like this because they cost less and I can have multiple watches instead of being forced to buy the expensive Apple Watch.

So there you have it. I know there are some die-hard Apple iPhone users that think I am making a mistake but on the other hand there are even more die-hard Android users. I think in the long run I am going to be very happy with my decision. Especially as Android continues to mature and provide more features than Apple and at a lower price.

Yesterday Sabine and I attended the Cave St. Martin Geocaching Event Cache where were took a tour of a Cold War Bunker which is now a “Lost Place”. The location is actually a bunker that was intended to be a Top Secret military communications bunker which was built by NATO during the Cold War.

Construction began in 1964 and was complete in 1972 at a cost of $8,000,000 which at that time was about 24,000,000 Deutschmarks! After completion it was decided that due to advances in communication that the bunker would not be needed afterall.

The bunker sat empty for the remainder of the Cold War and then was sold to the nearby village of Sankt (Saint) Martin in 1997 for 1 Deutschmark! Germany also gave the village 90,000 Deutschmarks to make improvements to the bunker so it could be used however they wanted.

The village of Sankt Martin is located on the Deutsche Wine Strasse which is famous for Palatine wine and they used the bunker to host Wine Fests. But in about 2004 the German Safety Agency declared that due to limited number of exits (2) that it could no longer be used to host public events. The bunker is now only opened for special tours for 30 people at a time.

Below you will see a few photos but I would like to point out the photo of the well. The well is over 50 Meters (150 feet) deep and the water is the clearest and purest you can find. The village of Sankt Martin used to let people learn scuba diving in the well until an instructor and student drowned inside. The water is very clear but if you touch the walls calcium is released which can cloud up the water and leave the divers with zero visibility. This happened with the two that drowned. The lost all visibility and became disoriented. They did not know which way was up or down.

I think that I might be the only American to have entered this bunker in over 40 years!

We had a great time touring this bunker and it is very cool to see locations that most people do not even know exist, let alone get to see.

If you enjoy outdoor adventures then I encourage you to check out Geocaching!

I finally finished the 81 Matrix by finding a cache at an almost 800 year old castle and had to climb into the hole they used as a toilet back in the 13th century. Here is my log: http://coord.info/GLN4J0FT.

To complete this matrix you must find at least one cache for each Geocache Difficulty and Terrain rating which begins a 1 Difficulty / 1 Terrain and goes up by .5 to 5 Difficulty / 5 Terrain. There is a total of 81 combinations.

Glad I have finally completed this as it was difficult to find caches that fit the last ten or so spots. It only took me 7 years and 3145 caches!

Today Sabine and I visited the American and German Cemeteries and Monuments to pay our respects to the American and German Soldiers who gave their lives in service to their countries.

The Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial is near Hamm which is a bit Northwest of Luxembourg City. The US Army 5th Armored Division liberated this site on 10 September 1944 and a temporary military burial ground was established on 29 December 1944. The Grand Ducal government of Luxembourg has provided this land to the US dead perpetually without charge or taxation.

This is the burial location of General George S. Patton and 5076 other American heroes including one female Army nurse. The cemetery is located on 50.5 acres and contains 4958 cross,118 Stars of David, and 101 unknown Soldiers. There are 22 sets of brothers buried side by side. The names of 371 Missing in Action are listed on the memorial. This cemetery was officially dedicated on 4 July 1960.

Contact info:

Luxembourg American Cemetery

50, Val du Scheid

L-2515 Luxembourg

Tel: +352 43.17.27

GPS N 49 36.771 E 6 11.157

Entrance to the Luxembourg American Cemetery

22 Brothers Buried Side by Side

WW II Vets Remembering

Luxembourg American Cemetery Monument

Luxembourg American Cemetery Monument

Luxembourg American Cemetery Monument

Unknown Soldier

Grave of General George S. Patton

The German Soldier Cemetery is a few kilometers from the American Cemetery in Sandweiler. The bodies of German Soldiers who were Killed in Action were recovered, cared for, and buried by the American Military Burial Service. A total of 10913 German Soldiers are buried here. 4829 are in a mass grave behind the cross of which 4014 are identified by name and 815 are unknown. Additionally there are 5599 individual graves which also include many unknown Soldiers. In 1952 an agreement was signed by the Grand Ducal of Luxembourg and Germany making this the first official German Soldier Cemetery built outside of Germany.

German Soldiers Cemetery Sandweiler

Entrance to German Soldiers Cemetery Sandweiler

Entrance to German Soldiers Cemetery Sandweiler

German Soldier Killed in Action and Unknown German Soldier

Gravestone for mass grave of 4829 German Soldiers – 815 unknown.

Gravestone for mass grave of 4829 German Soldiers – 815 unknown.

A solemn place…..not often visited.

In Our Hearts You Live Again. Even the German Soldiers had loved ones.

I would like to share today my 1999 DiamondBack Sorrento SE bicycle. I bought this bike back in 1999 at the US Army PX in Hanau Germany. It had been a long time since I had owned a good bike and I figured it was time to get one so I could ride.

The Sorrento SE is a hardtail Mountain Bike with front suspension. The original MSRP was $349.00 but I don’t remember what I paid for this one. Probably the MSPR. This was also the last year for this DiamondBack model.

My bike is pretty much stock but I have replaced the Crank, Bottom Bracket, and the Front Shifter mechanism. Current crank is the Shimano FC-M311-L Alivio and the bottom bracket is the Shimano UN55 BB.

For lighting I have Bike Planet front and rear LEDs and See Sense ICON smart lights. The See Sense ICON lights are Bluetooth enabled and I can adjust the pattern and brightness on my smart phone. The rear light also detects when I am slowing down and acts like a brake light. Additionally if I crash the lights will automatically send my location to another phone via a text message. I got the See Sense ICON light via a Kickstarter project.

Well I started my hydroponic garden up. Started putting it together last weekend and now it is running pretty good. Have one more spicy pepper plant to add. No tomatoes this year since this probably our last summer here I didn’t want to go to the trouble of building up a tomato house.